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Liverpool: A sinking ship?

As the auction house that is the transfer window opens it’s doors for the summer, there’s an avalanche of rumours linking Southampton players, here there and everywhere. One of this years early saga’s belongs to Saints and England full back Nathaniel Clyne who’s been heavily linked as well as being to subject to a bid by Liverpool.

Liverpool Football Club, a giant of the beautiful game, one of European football’s super clubs and England’s second most successful club in history. Oh how times have changed. As the shadow of the 2015/16 Premier League season begins to loom, they seem to have no chance of achieving Champions League football and are are crumbling further and further into the downward spiral that has dominated their last ten years. They find themselves regularly overpaying for mediocre players, with the fans kidding themselves that they are singing up top talents, who are humbled by the clubs great history while the reality is that their reasons for joining are largely financial. But why is all this the case? I have searched far and wide for the primary factors that are the key contributors to Liverpool’s largely unsuccessful recent history.

“What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it. It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes. It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.” The late, great Bobby Robson wrote that about football’s most loyal members. The fans.

While managers, players and even owners come and go, the fans always remain the same. This is the first problem about Liverpool Football Club. They’re fans have built up a terrible reputation for themselves over recent times. From stealing tickets from children outside of stadiums to launching racial attacks at there own players over social media, the people that make up the legendary ‘Kop end’ have managed to make everyone dislike them, more than ever before. Where does this this stem from? I think I may have found the answer.

They are angry and they are vicious and they have a hair-trigger temper. They greet any criticism, real or perceived, of the club they love with absolute fury. They come armed with words and threats and scorn. They lash out at whoever aggravates them. Their attacks are not curbed by moderation, or dampened by doubt. They are sustained and they are ferocious. They take no prisoners. If they as much as sense criticism they swarm in their masses to respond and defend themselves, taking the observations painfully personally. This is a small minority but a minority that does exist.

The second primary contributor to Liverpool’s modern day downward spiral is the man in charge. Brendan Rodgers. The bottom line is: He isn’t as good as he thinks he is. He’s out of his depth and living on borrowed time. The owners crave the stability of Rafa Benitez’s reign after Hodgson and Dalgleish suffered relatively quick exits, so they keep him because this is their outlook and they believe it’ll that it’ll get better.

Granted the 2013/14 season was a good won however you can’t look past the fact that they should have won the division, but collapses at both Palace and Chelsea (Steven Gerrard style) left them trailing in Manchester City’s wake. Who’s fault is this? You have to blame the manager.

Three years is a long time to be at one club in modern day football, and being at a big team for that long as well as spending so much money, Rodgers should have won something. He hasn’t. There is a constant flow of rumours coming out of the dressing room at Anfield that Rodgers has lost the dressing room. Ex players like Pepe Reina and Daniel Agger have spoken out about Rodgers, describing his as “Difficult.” The only people who seem to have any faith in Rodgers are the owners!

The final contributor to Liverpool tumbling down this incredibly slippery slope is the infamous Liverpool transfer committee. The Liverpool owner, John W Henry is happy to splash the cash, there’s no doubt about that, however he does it on his terms with his people having the final say. Of course Rodgers has an input but this ‘Committee’ seems to have a habit of purchasing form players rather than quality players. There are exceptions, Luis Suarez of course was Henry’s first signing as Liverpool owner, but he was swiftly followed through the Anfield door by players like Charlie Adam, Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing.

Henry is too stubborn to fire this committee, but after Liverpool spent big last season to bring in players like ex Saints, Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Dejan Lovren, with effectively no success, surely Henry must consider the positions of those in question at Liverpool Football Club.

So, I digress to the true point of this article, why would Clyne sign for a club that is quite obviously falling down the pecking order of English Football or even why would he leave one that’s clearly climbing up that list. I’m sure of one thing, if Clyne does leave for Liverpool this season it’s not because they are a bigger club than Southampton, it’s because they can give him a bigger paycheque at the end of the week.